Pascal on the Pitch: Cards pull off pair of wins

If they keep this up, the St. Charles College husband-and-wife soccer coaching tandem of Erik and Kristy Hebert will soon have folks at the school forgetting about the recently retired duo of John Sikora and Lloyd Rebeiro.

Ya-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a " ….. no!

With the legacy of the latter two well entrenched in the Cardinals’ soccer program thanks to decades of success on the pitch, Sikora and Rebeiro now find themselves enjoying more soccer than ever as they make their way globe-trotting from one continent to the next.

In the meantime, things are just fine on the home front, at least partly due to the work of the Hebert clan.

St. Charles will be represented in both of the SDSSAA soccer city finals come Tuesday, after pulling out victories by the identical score of 3-2 in both of the first two semi-finals yesterday. The young ladies representing SCC needed overtime to dispose of the Confederation Chargers 3-2, with Emma Dionne netting all three tallies for the Cards.

While the energetic senior provided the spark on offense, it was defensive stalwart Lexie McNamara holding down the fort on the back line, a shift from her traditional club soccer post. "I’m usually a defender, on the wing, but I play centerback with this team," said McNamara. "I try and help them (other St Charles defenders) as much as I can when I’m on the field. I try and keep possession of the ball and then send it."

Madison Laberge and Kaitlyn Walker answered for Confederation, as the teams closed off 80 minutes of action deadlocked at 2-2 with a little confusion ensuing in the second of the two 10-minute overtime sessions, as Dionne completed her hat trick.

"It was really stressful," McNamara admitted. "I thought it was sudden death, but it wasn’t. Everyone rushed together when Emma scored, everyone thought it was over. There was about five minutes left."

The Cardinals would withstand one final push from the Chargers, a scene that would play itself out again at the tail-end of the St. Charles boys’ victory over the St Benedict Bears.

Matt Belanger, Aidan Martel and Arnaud Nhsimyurwa all found the back of the net for the winners, with Giovanni Mastroianni enjoying a two-goal performance in a losing cause for the Bears. The victory moves St. Charles one step closer to their ultimate goal.

"Our aim this year is to get to OFSAA, to do whatever it takes to get to OFSAA," noted midfielder Aristide Uwiduhaye. "Most of the guys, it’s our last year at St Charles."

And while some are completing their fourth or fifth years at the Falconbridge Road school, Uwiduhaye is just in his second, having moved from his native land of Rwanda, to Canada, back in 2016.

"I got to St Charles two years ago, they already had a good team," he suggested. "I was also not a bad player. I like the team, the way they play, the spirit of the team, everyone is friendly. That makes me be more confident and happy to play for the team."

Not that he wasn’t already intimately familiar with the beautiful game. The playing conditions, however, were certainly different.

"I started to play soccer when I was four years old," said Uwiduhaye. "Here, we’ve got more fields to play, more good fields to play. But also, the weather is not as good here as in Rwanda. In Rwanda, it’s always hot and sunny, so you can play every day. That’s why we get good ball control. You can’t have as much ball control when you don’t play as much as possible."

Come Tuesday, the St. Charles will meet a most unexpected fellow finalist. After not winning a game in the regular season, the Lasalle Lancers extended their incredible post-season run, taking down the Lo-Ellen Park Knights, 2-1 on penalty kicks.

To boot, they did it with a keeper hobbling around noticeably on what amounted to just one good leg.

"I sprained my ankle at track and field yesterday," explained Emma White. "I was jumping up and down, because I was excited, when I was warming up, and I landed on it funny."

Thankfully, both White and her teammates made the necessary adjustments to compensate for a less than 100 per cent last line of defence.

"I had to start jumping off my left foot, and I’m right-footed, so it got really difficult," said White. "But our team did a really good job on defence, to be honest. We watched the crosses, we watched the corners, the posts. I couldn’t be more proud of them."

With Sydney Wachnuk (Lasalle) and Gia Grossi (Lo-Ellen) trading goals in regulation time, one would have thought a penalty kick scenario would favour the Knights, with White nursing her injury. That theory was dispelled quickly when the Lancers’ keeper dove cross crease on the first Knights’ attempt, making a gorgeous two-hand save near the far post.

"I waited until I saw the kick," said White. "I thought I might be fast enough to get to it, and I did. She kind of looked at that corner, though, so that kind of gave it away."

With Kiara Parry, Hay-Lee Lavigne and Katie MacGirr making good on their shots, and Lo-Ellen coming up empty on three of four attempts, it would be White that was swamped, clearly unable to outrun the oncoming flood of ecstatic teammates that would mob her.

The final game of the day would see the Collège Notre-Dame Alouettes redeem themselves after a disappointing 2017 campaign, booking their ticket in the final with a 3-1 win over the Sacré-Coeur Griffons.

The Alouettes received goals from Julien Tubin, Alex Rossini and Sean Roberts, with Mathieu Archambault converting on a penalty kick in a losing cause for Sacré-Coeur.